What is stress? Is it good or bad? How do we respond or adapt to stress? Do we believe the world is an abundant, friendly place, or a place of lack, limitation and danger. Our experience of what is stressful depends on our perceptions and beliefs.
Stress is any stimulus which produces a change in the body’s current mode of functioning. Without stimulation of any kind, the body is inert. Thus we need stress in order to live, grow and change. Whether the change is beneficial or damaging is up to us, our beliefs and patterns, often acquired in early childhood.
Stress can be physical, mental, emotional, or environmental—any stimulus to which the body must constantly respond. The problem arises when the level of stress is too high, or the duration is too long and the body cannot adapt. In fact, one definition of health is adaptability. Excessive stress overwhelms the body/mind’s ability to cope, and leaves it in the traumatic survival mode of flight, fight or freeze. We become stuck in reaction, cannot adapt, are overwhelmed, and adrenal exhaustion is the result.
The greatest obstacle preventing us from responding appropriately to the stress of the moment is past patterns embedded in the nervous system as energy blocks. This condition is called Subconscious Emotional Memory Override (SEMO), in which these embedded memories create interference in the nervous system, generating relentless unconscious stress, 24/7.
How does this happen? The conscious, thinking mind (usually called the cortical layer of the brain) is the gateway to the subconscious. It also generates endless thoughts which stimulate emotions that can become stuck and embedded in the subconscious. The subconscious, emotional mind (also referred to as the limbic brain) has the job of evaluating input or stimulus (stress) as a threat or no-threat. If it perceives the stress as a threat (which may be real or distorted by SEMO) it sends signals to the adrenals to release adrenaline, cortisol and other stress hormones. These in turn cause signals creating muscle tension, increase in heart rate and blood pressure, inhibition of digestion, toxic build-up and the inability to heal.
In other words SEMO is shaping our thoughts, feelings, reactions and beliefs, and our beliefs shape our reality, distorted as it may be. No wonder the result is adrenal exhaustion and emotional overwhelm! Adrenal exhaustion leads to sleep disorders, immune and auto-immune conditions, musculo-skeletal disease, hormonal imbalances, heart disease, poor healing response, digestive disorders, depression, energy depletion and much more. This list of stress generated dis-eases should be enough to motivate any of us to approach stress reduction as a major health goal.
The Bio-Energetic Synchronization Technique is one of the most effective tools to identify and gently remove SEMO, and is most effective when combined with making positive lifestyle choices in The Six Essentials. Our choices around these Essentials can continue to cause relentless stress and exhaustion, or help us reduce stress and develop the resilience to meet life’s normal challenges.